FORM-Idea

In our increasingly polarised world, there are few stories, which bridge the gap between our ever more fragmented communities.  And yet, Stranger at the Gate does just that.  It is a short documentary, directed by Emmy award nominated director, Joshua Seftel.  The film tells the story of a traumatized American veteran Richard McKinney, who returns from his tour of duty with a visceral hatred of all Muslims.  This hatred leads him to contemplate the unthinkable, an attack on his local mosque where he hopes to commit mass murder and kill at least two hundred people.  He later commented that he thought at the time that anything less would not be worth it.  Seftel’s film takes the audience on a terrifying journey into the mind of a potential mass murderer.

The idea for making Stranger at the Gate came to Seftel after reading an article about McKinney’s experience.  This sparked his curiosity and he immediately got in touch. The short documentary Seftel subsequently made, was the latest in a series of films, he directed in the aftermath of 9/11.  At a recent Q and A Seftel spoke about his motivation for making these films. “I think growing up Jewish in America I was impacted by anti-Semitism; it was a fact of life.   In the wake of 9/11 I saw the same thing happening to the Moslem community and I just want to find a way to create work which would act as a counterbalance to this.”  The short films Seftel’s directed sought to challenge the poisonous rhetoric, which he saw being generated across America.  He hoped in making these films that he would have an opportunity of portraying the Muslim community in a positive light.  These short films were distributed, primarily on Youtube.  But with Stranger at the Gate, he hoped that both the film and its underlying message would reach a wider audience.

Stranger at the Gate highlights the incident which triggered McKinney’s rage, a seemingly innocuous one, which involved his daughter returning home from school one day and commenting on the fact that a student’s mom had come to collect her son that day wearing a face veil. McKinnon’s daughter, remembers thinking at the time how unusual it was to see a woman wearing a face veil but she was curious rather than upset. She goes on though, in film to comment on her father’s reaction at the time, which was the complete opposite to hers and was in fact quite terrifying. That single incident served as the catalyst for McKinney to put into action his plan to organise an attack on the local mosque and kill all its occupants. In McKinney’s planning, he decided that he needed to actually make, a visit there. What he found when he arrived was an open and welcoming community. Despite McKinney’s imposing appearance (tall and heavily tattooed) the president of the mosque not only greeted him warmly but dropped to his knees and embraced McKinney’s legs and in that instance all the rage he had felt for years immediately evaporated and not only did he immediately drop his plans to attack the mosque but made repeated visits there. McKinney eventually converted to Islam.

Seftel says of his film that it’s very much about the power of love to change even the most hardened heart, to transform a potentially dangerous situation to one which is now an inspiration for many around the world.  McKinney not only converted but went on, despite members of the mosque having been informed about McKinney’s previous plans, being voted in as the mosque’s new president, the very mosque he wanted to destroy.  McKinney now lectures around America about his extraordinary personal journey.  But although McKinney’s story is one with a happy ending, for many returning veterans the trauma of their experiences still haunts them and if those wounds are left to fester it could have catastrophic consequences for us all.